21 Jun 25 - Completing The British Breeding Damselfly Set

I was up early after a good night's sleep in the Focus Hotel in the Loch Garten area. This gave me time for a leisurely breakfast, while allowing some time for the Northern Damselflies to get moving. The first stop was this pool close to the Loch Garten Osprey centre.

The pool close to the Loch Garten Osprey centre

There were a few active Northern Damselflies when I arrived. But none were particularly close to the boardwalk that provides access to the pool.

Northern Damselfly: Male. Unlike the other blue Damselflies they hold their wings in this part-opened position when resting. The only other Damselfly species that occurs this far North is Common Blue Damselfly and the wing posture is a quick way to separate the two species

Northern Damselfly: Male. Note the distinctive black arrow-head markings on segment two. They always have black lines at the side of this marking, but the length of these markings can vary

Northern Damselfly: Male. Sometimes, the black lines at the sides on segment two can be broken

Northern Damselfly: Male doing some Damselfly gymnastics

Northern Damselfly: Preparing for the next generation

There were a few Large Red Damselflies, an Emerald Damselfly and good numbers of Four-spotted Chasers around the pool.

Large Red Damselfly: Nice and easy to identify as its smaller cousin, Small Red Damselfly doesn't occur in Scotland

Large Red Damselfly

Large Red Damselfly

Emerald Damselfly: Teneral. Currently, this is the only Emerald Damselfly species in Scotland, but Willow Emerald Damselfly might reach the border in the next few years

Four-spotted Chaser: An incredibly tatty individual

The next stop was a small pond next to the junction of the Tulloch Moor and Loch Garten roads. This is a good site for White-faced Darters and I wasn't disappointed.

White-faced Darter: Male

White-faced Darter: Male

White-faced Darter

By late morning, it was time to head for Oban. While I had been in Scotland, there was an appeal for a replacement surveyor on the ORCA survey from Oban to Colonsay, Coll and Tiree. Later that day, I had confirmation that I was part of the team. I had a good journey back to Spean Bridge before heading South for Oban. The highlight of the drive was passing Castle Stalker. It is another Scottish Castle that has been built on a small island. It dates from around 1450 on the site of an earlier fortified building.

Castle Stalker: The Castle is about twenty miles North of Oban

Castle Stalker: The castle has been fully renovated and there are regular tours for small groups around it. A proper visit might be fun if I'm in the Oban area again

After getting some food in Oban, I looked for somewhere to park the car for the night. I ended up finding a layby next to sea loch just North of Knipoch. This proved a good choose with a bonus hunting Osprey seen, while I was catching up with some notes in the carb. Soon afterwards, it started to rain. This was a good excuse to turn in early, as I was expected at the Oban ferry terminal at 06:15. To allow time for breakfast and to get to the terminal, the alarm was set for about 04:30. However, I received an even earlier text that morning from the ORCA Team Leader, Bill Anderson, saying the departure time had been pushed back. The schedule had been changed to only visit the Coll and Tiree, whilst skipping the final Oban to Colonsay return trip. The ship's crew had been involved in a search and rescue operation the previous day, after an empty kayak had been found at sea. There were fears that the kayaker was still in the water. Despite a lot of looking, the search teams failed to find anything. The search was called off when the irresponsible owner of the kayak popped up on social media to ask if anybody had found the kayak that he had lost. He didn't have the common sense to inform the coastguards in a timely fashion about the loss. I hope the coastguards read the kayaker the riot act for his stupidity.

Oban: It looked like a very overcast morning for the ORCA survey, after a night of heavy rain

I arrived with plenty of spare time at the Oban terminal to meet Bill, as well as, the other surveyors, Connie Remmix and Hannah Drummond. The survey route passes along the narrow Sound of Mull Channel between Mull and the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, before reaching the open sea. The first stop was Coll, where we quickly unloaded and loaded passengers, before heading onto Tiree. We stopped again at Coll on the way back to Oban. Had we included Colonsay, it would have been over fourteen hours on the ferry. With Colonsay removed, it was a more pleasant ten hours.

The CalMac Clansman

It was raining again as we returned into Oban: But it had been largely dry, once we reached the open sea before the Sound of Mull Channel

The weather forecast for the following few days was for more wet and windy weather on the Scottish West Coast. In light of the weather forecast and only being a couple of hours away from Glasgow, I decided it was time to start heading home. We off the ferry soon after seven in the evening and I set the sat nav for my usual layby in the Lakes. I finally reached Lakes around one in the morning and settled down for a final night in the Focus Hotel, before the rest of the drive South. It had been a good Scottish trip, with three excellent ORCA surveys and the chance to see three of the four Scottish speciality Dragonflies (albeit one is now downgraded to a subspecies). It was also good to see some more White-faced Darters: a species I had only seen once before the Scottish trip. I will be back for more ORCA surveys to the Western Isles and to hopefully see an Azure Hawker or two.

22 Jul 18 - Some Of The Resident Wildlife At Studland's Littlesea

In addition to the resident Birds photographed at Littlesea since I found the Purple Heron at Littlesea, I've managed to get some nice photos of some of the other commoner residents, while I've been looking for the Purple Heron during the daytime.

Sika Deer: They often appear around Littlesea & are quite comfortable in the water. This individual was feeding on the fern behind it (20 Jul 18)

Common Lizard: Enjoying the sun (18 Jul 18)

Large Skipper: Male (18 Jul 18)

Emerald Damselfly: Female. This is the only Emerald Damselfly type in Dorset, but I'm checking the ones I see as it can't be long before one of the other recently UK established species appear in Dorset (18 Jul 18)

Emerald Damselfly: Male (21 Jul 18)

Red-eyed Damselfly: Good to see this is relatively abundant at Littlesea after seeing it for the first time in there in 2017. Although I assume it has been there for the last few years (18 Jul 18)

Red-eyed Damselfly: (18 Jul 18)

Blue-tailed Damselfly: A common resident (18 Jul 18)

Water Strider: I saw a few so perhaps this is reasonable common along the edges (22 Jul 18)

White Water-lily: Hopefully I've got the id correct. Not quite Monet standard. The White Water-lilies are a popular haunt of the Red-eyed Damselflies and Small Red-eyed Damselflies (20 Jul 18)

28 Nov 14 - Insect Photospot4 - Dorset Damselflies

This is the second Dragonfly Photospot, covering the Damselflies & Demoiselles that are found in Dorset. The main aim is to give the readers an appreciation of the variety of species that can be seen in Dorset, rather than focusing on the identification. There are plenty more photos of these species as well as useful identification features in earlier Posts: just click on the Label links on the right hand side of the Blog.

Banded Demoiselle: Male. This is a common species on a number of the clean Dorset rivers. Throop Mill (23 June 14)

Banded Demoiselle: Female. White Mill, Sturminster Marshall (28 June 14)

Beautiful Demoiselle: Male. This is more of a heathland pond species. Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

Emerald Damselfly: Male. Currently, this is the only Emerald Damselfly found in Dorset, but there are other species that have recently colonised Kent & East Anglia and hopefully in time, they will reach Dorset. Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

Emerald Damselfly: Female. Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

White-legged Damselfly: Male. Canford School Water Meadows (29 June 14)

White-legged Damselfly: Female. Canford School Water Meadows (29 June 14)

Red-eyed Damselfly: This species seems to really like resting on water lilies well away from the water's edge. Throop Mill (23 June 14)

Red-eyed Damselfly: Mating Pair. Throop Mill (23 June 14)

Small Red-eyed Damselfly: This species is less widespread than Red-eyed Damselfly in Dorset with the Weymouth area being one of the more reliable sites to see it. It is a species I have yet to photograph

Large Red Damselfly: East Holme Water Meadows (6 June 14)

Large Red Damselfly: Mating Pair. Brownsea (21 June 14)

Small Red Damselfly: This species is smaller & daintier than Large Red Damselfly and is a heathland specialist. Arne (11 July 14)

Blue-tailed Damselfly: This is the common Blue-tailed Damselfly species in Dorset. Bestwall (19 June 14)

Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly: This is a rarer of the two Blue-tailed Damselfly species in Dorset with a limited number of sites. It likes good boggy conditions or habitats with open edges to water and doesn't seem to be much of a flier compared to its commoner relative (4 Aug 14)

Common Blue Damselfly: Male. White Mill, Sturminster Marshall (28 June 14)

Azure Damselfly: Arne (8 June 14)

Southern Damselfly: This is the scarce species of the three Blue Damselflies. The main features to separate the 3 Dorset Blue Damselflies can be found here (9 July 12)

3 Aug 14 - Beautiful, Black, Blue & Emerald

With no joy in the first 2 bogs tried, I carried on into Rempstone Forest to check out the final local historical site for Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly. En route, there were a few commoner Dragonflies, Butterflies & a Wasp Spider. For those of you that don't like Spiders, well don't go to the bottom of the post. But best to continue as this is one of the best looking UK Spiders. But first there was a great Helice Clouded Yellow. Clouded Yellows are a great migrant Butterfly that appear in varying numbers in Dorset. A smaller variable percentage come in the pale Helice form. This only affects females (like the Valesina Silver-washed Fritillaries), but I've yet to understand why only females have this aberration.

Clouded Yellow: Helice female. A percentage of the females have a pale form know as a Helice, where the butterfly is much paler than the normal dark yellow colouration. They are even whiter on the upperwing

Clouded Yellow: This is the typical form taken at Fontmell Down as part of the same recent invasion (30 July 14)

 

Common Blue

Common Blue

There were also a few Black Darters, Common Darters, Beautiful Demoiselles & a good selection of Emerald Damselflies. But unfortunately, the Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly site was as dry as a bone. So no chance of any there.

Black Darter: Male

Common Darter: Female

Common Darter: Female closeup of the face. The black line above the frons (nose) does not turn down by the side of the eyes & this is diagnostic of Common Darters: it turns down in all the other species

Common Darter: Female. the 2 yellow bands on the side of the thorax also confirms it is a Common Darter

Beautiful Demoiselle: Male

Emerald Damselfly: Male. The pale blue covering the first 2 segments in Emerald Damselfly & the pterostigma are long & relatively thin separate this from a Scarce Emerald Damselfly (which has the pale blue over the first & half of segment 2. Scarce Emerald also has a broader, shorter pterostigma

Emerald Damselfly: Female.

Emerald Damselfly: Female. Emerald Damselfly has a narrow white stripe on the side of the thorax and an isolated green spot just above the middle leg. Scarce Emerald does not have the green spot and the white stripe on the side of the thorax

Emerald Damselfly: Immature female

Emerald Damselfly: Immature female. Just about possible to see the green spot & the orange side stripe on the thorax

Finally, the Wasp Spider. I remember seeing my first Wasp Spiders at Radipole in the early 80s. In those days, they were apparently reasonable well established on the Kent to Dorset coastline, having only been found for the first time in the UK in 1922 in Rye, Sussex. I don't know how they got there in the first place from the continent. They have expanded their range considerably since & are now well established from Cornwall to Suffolk, with scattered localities elsewhere as far as Birmingham.

Wasp Spider: Female. This is a female, the males are much smaller than this large Spider